Working with Layers in Photoshop

In Photoshop, layers are used to work on individual parts of an image while not affecting other parts. You might say that layers are like transparency papers stacked on top of one another which can be repositioned and separately drawn on without disturbing each other.

Explaining Layers

Consider the following Graphic created in Adobe Photoshop:

To the viewer, this is simply one flat graphic. However, in Photoshop, it is actually 4 separate layers (graphics if you will) stacked on top of one another. There is a Blue Background layer, two separate layers with a T9 Cloud, and a top layer with the “Tutorial9″ text.

As you can see, layers are more like transparencies stacked on top of one another, each with something different sketched onto them.

Let’s put this knowledge to use now!

How to use Layers in Photoshop

You may have an easier time understanding how to use layers if we take on a simple task in Photoshop that allows you to play with them yourself. Go ahead and Create a New Document (File > New). Set it up to be 400 x 400px, with a resolution of 72px/inch.

We’re going to create the following graphic using layers:

Filling the Background

Typically, when I’m working in Photoshop, I like to work from the background to the top (probably because that’s how the graphic is seen by viewers), so to start things off we are going to fill our background layer with a nice dull green.

Select a Dull Green Foreground Color. To do this, click your foreground color, and use the color sliders to find a suitable color. Alternatively, you can enter the HEX value 36442a next to the “#” symbol on the lower right side.

Click OK to confirm the color value you’ve picked. Now grab the Fill Tool from the Toolbox, and click anywhere in your working image area. Upon clicking the mouse button, your entire background layer should be filled with the foreground color.

Create a New Layer

Let’s take a quick peek at the Layers Palette, and examine some of it’s more basic functions:

To create a new layer, Click the “New Layer” icon shown above.

As you can see, a new layer “Layer 1” has been created. You can rename this layer by clicking the name of it twice, and entering whatever name you desire. While this layer is selected (highlighted) you will be working on this layer alone in the photoshop document!

Drawing the Grass

Select the Brush Tool from the toolbox. Adobe Photoshop already has a preset brush called “Dune Grass” which we are going to use to create the grass in our graphic.

In the brush tool’s Option Bar, open the Brush Preset Picker (Small down arrow to the right of the currently selected “Brush”). Scroll a ways down the list, and select the Dune Grass Brush.

We’re not going to go over brushes in great detail in the tutorial, but you do need to know that this brush is setup to alternate between foreground and background colors. Because of this, we need to select a background color with a similar green value (Such as #19250f).

Once you have a good foreground and background color selected, start painting with your brush in the working image area on your new layer. Hold down the Mouse Button to use the brush tool.

Let’s add some text now!

The Type Tool

Select the Horizontal Type Tool from the toolbox. Set your Foreground Color to White. Click anywhere in your working image area to begin typing.

Once you’ve typed something, select all of the text with your cursor (hold down the mouse button, and drag over the text to select). We’re going to adjust some of the type attributes in the Type Options Bar.

Set the Font to Arial, the font weight to Bold, the text size to 60 pt, and the anti-aliasing to Crisp.

As you can see, the Type Tool has created a new Type Layer in your layers palette for the text. To apply the text, click this new layer (Or click Ctrl + Enter).

Great! Now let’s position our new type tool so that it appears to be emerging from the grass.

Moving Layers

The first thing we need to do is position our Type Layer below the Grass Layer so that the Grass will appear in front of it. In your layers palette, click and drag your Type Layer below the Grass layer.

Now we can use the Move Tool to reposition our layer in the working image area. While the Type Layer is selected,get the Move Tool from the toolbox, and drag the text in the working image area to where the grass starts to end.

Pretty Simple, eh? Now that you have the general idea of layers down, let’s create a few more and play with some of their options.

Opacity, Blending Modes & Filling Selections

Create a New Layer just above the background (below the type and grass layers), and drag out an elliptical selection using the Elliptical Marquee Tool (this tool may be hidden behind another marquee selection tool).

You should have a large, white circle in your document now. Set this layers Blending Mode to Overlay in the layers palette:

Setting the blending mode is that easy! I won’t go into details about blending modes in this tutorial, but please experiment with them to get an idea of what they do.

Now set the Opacity to something like 15-20%.

Simple! Now right click this new layer, and select Duplicate Layer. This will create an exact copy of this layer (retaining layer opacity and blending mode). Using the Move Tool reposition this layer so that you can clearly see the two different circle edges.

See how you can see through the top circle to see the circle behind it? This is because our circle layers are somewhat transparent, otherwise known as less opaque. By setting the opacity to something below 100%, we are able to see through objects.

Finally, let’s take a look at one more useful feature in the layers palette. Click the New Group icon at the bottom of the layers palette (the one shaped like a folder).

Groups function in a similar manner to a folder. You can put multiple layers inside of a group, and then when you select the group (versus an individual layer), you’re able to adjust the opacity, blending mode, and position of all those layers at the same time (as well as several other things).

Let’s give it a try! Drag your two circle layers inside of the group.

Once both layers have been placed in the group (they should appear indented from the other layers), Select the Group in the layers palette. Using the Move Tool, drag inside of your working image area. Both your circle layers should move at the exact same time, yet they still retain their individual layer attributes!

Now that you have a better understanding of layers, learning some of Photoshop’s more interesting features should be a breeze!

I’ve just come across your tutorials, and am loving it!! I especially like the layers one, and it was nice to do some hands on learning, I’m looking forward to the rest of the lessons. Thankyou for such a great resource :D

Where have you been all my life???? This tutorial is great!
I am “teaching” (I say that loosely) beginning photoshop. I have had very little instruction, mostly what I can figure out myself. I’m so excited about this tutorial, I hate to leave it, but it is Friday evening, I’m going out of town with no computer. Sunday, can’t come soon enough. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Is this, by any chance, on a CD? I’m afraid you’ll disappear off line before I’m ready.

Thanks for these awesome lessons! I’m so glad I found a website that takes an approach of “So…you just got Photoshop. Now what?” as opposed to the usual “Instructions on how to do xyz”. They’re very, very helpful!

I went through different websites, and Photoshop tutorials, and ‘Photoshop for dummies’…
it’s the best lesson i had so far. it has what all beginners need – step by step explanation.
Thank you, thank you, thank you…
i am looking forward to your new lessons

Wow! I can’t even tell you how thankful I am for this site! I aquired an old computer with photoshop on it and I didn’t even know how to open it up.

I have the grass, text, and a marquee…however, my version must be older because I can only make a rectangle. To give you an idea of what version I have it just says C2 and I don’t have a fill option in the toolbar on the side.

Thanks a million for teaching Photoshop very patiently to newbie lik me! This is THE tutorial site, wonder how much time I have wasted so far in search for something easy like this! Keep up the good work.

Just when I think iv found just about all the resources I could possibly want to learn more in Photoshop, I come across this! Many thanks. Having been playing with PS only a couple of weeks I’m still getting to grips with the basic controls and this was very helpful. Sometimes you need tutorials this simple just to get you going, so many thanks! Keep it up o/

I am new to photoshop and have struggled to understand anything until I found this tutorial and for the first time ever am beginning to think there is hope even for me!!
Many thanks for this and I look forward to the next one

You are officially my hero. I just downloaded Photoshop for the first time, and I was having SO much trouble understanding it, but this tutorial really helped to clear up a lot of the problems I had been having. The walk-through was exactly what I needed to understand it. Thanks!

Thanks man! Ive bought many books to help me work out this PS, but they all seem to think people have enough knowledge to get through without showing what the icons look like (very frustrating), you’ve opened up a whole new interest! Many thanks.

Thanks so much Josh =) We wanted to make sure we had an easy way to reference basic steps in Photoshop, that way we never left anyone out, and at the same time introduce ANYONE into software like Photoshop without the need to shell out tons of money. The School of Photoshop solves both problems, and I think a lot of people are finding it to be very useful so far!

I have at least 12 sites with tutorials saved on my PC, but
it seems every one I go to, I always run into some kind of
problems, because most of them assume you know how to do a
specific step & just pass it by.

But your site, is fabulous, thus far. Super easy to follow,
especially for beginners like myself. And I appreciate you
putting forth the time & effort to help out people interested
in the Photoshop world.

thanks so much for the tutorial! I am, now able to make my own touched with psd! ^^ But, I have a slight problem. I noticed that I only have a rectangular Marquee tool 1. — I can’t using any circle or oval marquee tool.. huhu. I really hope you can help where I can found the tool? For an info, I am currently using Photoshop CS3.

Whoa! Thats a really nice 3D diagram you did for layers. Once again, very good explanations on something that is very important to designers like us! Are you going to explain the other kinds of layers sometime soon?